I HOPE YOU HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ABOUT THOSE

9 MISSING REVOLVERS

BECAUSE HERE'S THE RETIRED MAJOR WHO ALLEGEDLY  WALKED OUT OF THE PROPERTY ROOM WITH THOSE GUNS, AND HE AND HIS WIFE, TELANOVELA ACTRESS CAROLINA TEJERA, ARE PART OF ANOTHER EVEN MORE AMAZING STORY ABOUT HOW THEY'RE GETTING SPECIAL FAVORS WITH THE HELP OF THE CHIEF OF POLICE AND THE CITY MANAGER

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Ever since that Friday night back in September of 1984 when the first episode of Miami Vice aired, the City of Miami and it's police department have been the subjects of a crazy love affair with TV viewers.

First it was Miami Vice, then it was CSI Miami and Dexter, a series about a Miami Metro Police Department blood pattern analyst who was also a serial killer.

There are many who believed that the success of that show would not have occurred if viewers had been asked to suspend the belief needed for characters to become "real," if Dexter worked in a police department in any other city other than Miami.

Then of course there was the reality TV show 48 Hours about real murders in Miami, that only fed the notion that we were an exotic and dangerous city that fed into the whole Casablanca on Biscayne Bay thing.

Along the way there were other low budget efforts that tried to  piggyback off of the success of these shows, including the pilot for the TV series - Miami's Finest: Special Operation Section - shot during the first year that Regalado was Mayor and played a part in the efforts to fire Chief Exposito when the video promo showed him calling his officers "predators."

If you're in the film business, Miami's Police Department, almost glows in the dark as the basis or location for some kind of TV series, and in 2015, Miami Police Major Orestes Chavez and his wife, Carolina Tejera, a well known star of telenovelas came up with an idea to use the Miami Police Department for their own TV series.

NOVEMBER  20, 2016

Although he's hard to spot, Chavez is the guy in the middle on the label of the DVD.

Chavez, besides being a cop and a well known collector of Cuban antiques is an aspiring actor, having appeared in several telenovelas and low budget feature films.

The thing that separated Chavez and his wife from any number of other folks in Miami and elsewhere who've had visions of producing a movie or TV series that involves the Miami Police Department is that Chavez was a Major in the department, and was a pal of the Chief.

This resulted in an interesting production agreement between their company, Tejera TV, LLC, and the City of Miami that appears was probably arranged by Chavez with his pal Chief Rudy Llanes, although for PR and legal reasons will be probably be denied and that his wife will get the negotiating credit, which in turn was passed on to the Chief's pal, City Manager Danny Alfonso to get the city's approval.

Alfonso in turn, did what every City Manager has done when an item that  screws the taxpayers needs to be approved, he made sure that the item was brought before the City Commission in a way that would minimize attention or discussion by including the item as part of the October 23, 2015 Commission's Consent Agenda, where it passed without so much as a peep from any of the Commissioners.  

As someone who spent over 30 years in the South Florida film industry and who during those years worked as a location scout/manager and producer on countless TV commercials, music videos, feature films and even several TV series that have used City of Miami parks, city buildings and city streets and has gone through all the steps and requirements imposed by the city in order to do be able to use those pieces of public property, as well as paying thousands of dollars in permit fees and other expenses, I can tell you that the financial payment portion of the contract between the city and Tejera TV, LLC makes absolutely no sense for the city because an agreement for a fixed episode "donation" of $1000 to the Police Athletic League (PAL.), without knowledge of whether the city's property would be used for an hour, a day or multiple days per episode represents little more than a sweetheart gift for the production company.

Here is that portion of the contract.

The fact that the "donations" don't have to be made until AFTER production has ended, is even more troubling because while I hate to say it, given my 30 year involvement in the industry, the film industry has a well earned reputation of fly-by-night scammers who walk away from projects owning everybody money.

As just one example of what happened in the City of Miami in recent years with another insider, sweetheart deal, I refer you to my 2012, 8 Part Series: The CRA Brings Show Business To Overtown, where Commissioners Spence-Jones and Marc Sarnoff gave Robert Townsend a total of $400,000 in CRA money earmarked for "slum and blight," to make a movie in Overtown that would employ local cast and crew and serves as a training opportunity for kids in Overtown, and he left town owning over $200,000. (Part VI)

The very notion that City Manager Danny Alfonso would be a party to this hustle reveals that contrary to all of his bluster and claims that he is a straight shooter always looking out for the best interests of his city and its citizens is nothing more than bullshit.

This contract is nothing more than a sweetheart deal between the Chief of Police and one of the top members of his Command Staff, and serves as a classic example of what can be called a Special Favor!

The most amazing part of this deal however, is not the possible, nor even probable conflict of interest issues, nor the way in which City Manager Danny Alfonso steered this deal past the City Commission, or even the bullshit, sweetheart financial arrangement.

No, the really amazing part of this deal is that even though the Miami Police Department doesn't have space within it's building to house critical evidence in hundreds of murder cases, and even though the current Major in charge of the Property Room I've been told is being forced to work out of an office described as the size of a bathroom, the office of now retired Major Orestes Chavez, has been under lock and key since he retired on September 28th so that whenever he and his wife get around to filming their TV series, they can use that office - which has been described to me as large and being decorated with all kinds of plaques and other typical set dressing associated with a high ranking police commander - as the show's principal set - thereby making it unavailable for use by anyone in the department - until the series is completed.

That's right, Chavez might be gone, but his office remains waiting for it's closeup, and maybe those 9 missing revolvers will turn out to be one of the plot lines in the TV series, if it turns out they weren't dumped in the ocean - like some now suspect - after I broke the story revealing that they had allegedly been removed from the Property Room by none other than Major Orestes Chavez.

It's Miami, Bitches!